Console Connect and Open Access Data Centres (OADC) have announced a new collaboration to bring leading on-demand connectivity and colocation services to a wider range of locations in Africa.
Using the Console Connect platform, businesses globally can now connect to OADC data centre facilities across South Africa. In addition, businesses will be able to order colocation services at all four OADC South Africa core data centre facilities via the Console Connect MeetingPlace.
The availability of the Console Connect Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform at OADC locations supports the growing cloud connectivity requirements of businesses in Africa, providing OADC customers with secure and fast access to major cloud providers hosted inside and outside of the region.
Unlike other NaaS platforms, Console Connect is underpinned by its own high-performance network, which offers extensive reach across the east and west coast of Africa, and onwards to more than 50 countries worldwide.
Since closing its funding in November 2021, OADC has been constructing and operating a growing pan-African network of data centre facilities, specifically tailored to the needs of telcos, ISPs, the cloud operator and wholesale community and major enterprises and governments.
As part of a five-year plan, OADC is moving rapidly to invest $500 million in core and edge data centre facilities across Africa, having deployed more than 30 data centres in its first 12 months of operation.
The first four OADC locations in which Console Connect will be available are:
- OADC Isando: located in a key business hub in Johannesburg
- OADC Durban: located at Amanzimtoti, KwaZulu-Natal
- OADC Rondebosch: located in the heart of Cape Town
- OADC Brackenfell: a second facility in Cape Town
Further locations across Africa will be announced to the platform in due course.
OADC also owns and operates 30 edge data centres across South Africa, which together with its flagship Lagos data centre and soon-to-be-operational facility in Kinshasa, DRC, are planned for Phase 2 of this deployment.
Through a single Access Port at these OADC facilities, customers can access a range of on-demand connectivity services, including:
- Direct and on-demand connections to major cloud platforms across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, including AWS Africa region and Oracle Cloud’s new cloud region in Johannesburg.
- Metro, regional and international Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity between 900+ data centres worldwide.
- On-demand premium business internet access delivered via a Tier 1 IP network.
- Access to a global ecosystem of SaaS, IoT, IX and business partners.
Dr Ayotunde Coker (CEO, OADC) said, “We are excited at this collaboration with Console Connect which is transformational for OADC and our clients. Our ‘core to edge’ strategy across Africa is based on deploying data centres at the appropriate scale, from large core facilities to our OADC EDGE facilities, at critical points of content generation and consumption. Clients are able to conveniently request rack and sub-rack capacity to meet their compute requirements at the edge or the core, streamlining and cost-optimising the provision of compute capacity at the point of need. This is another significant milestone in the expansion of OADC across Africa.”
Michael Glynn, SVP of Digital Automated Innovation, Console Connect, said, “The availability of Console Connect in more data centres locations across Africa will help local businesses accelerate their journey to the cloud. This collaboration with OADC helps Console Connect users grow their network reach across Africa, while enabling more local businesses to access our global partner ecosystem.”
Console Connect recently published a study on the growth in data centre investment and cloud adoption in Africa, which can be downloaded here.
